ARTS EDUCATION
“The arts are among the ways in which we move from merely enduring experience to understanding and controlling it”
Rowe 2005
Today we are clearly and strongly aware of the important influence of the creative spirit in shaping the human personality, bringing out the full potential of children and adolescents and maintaining their emotional balance – all factors which foster harmonious behavior.
At a time when family and social structures are changing, with often adverse effects on children and adolescents, the school of the twenty-first century must be able to anticipate new needs by according a special place to the teaching of artistic values and subjects in order to encourage creativity, which is a distinctive attribute of the human species. Creativity is our hope.
A more balanced kind of education is now needed, with scientific, technical and sports disciplines, the human sciences and arts education placed on an equal footing at the different stages of schooling, during which children and adolescents must be able to accede to a learning process that is beneficial, more broadly, to their intellectual and emotional balance. Arts teaching should stimulate the body as well as the mind. By setting the senses in motion, it creates a memory which sharpens the sensitivity of the child and makes him or her more receptive to other forms of knowledge, notably scientific knowledge. Furthermore, it develops individuals’ creative faculty and directs their aggressiveness towards the symbolic objects of their choice.
The time has come to give all school-going children the benefit of such teaching.
The Constitution of UNESCO provides that since ”the wide diffusion of culture, and the education of humanity for justice and liberty and peace are indispensable to the dignity of man”, all nations are dutybound to ensure, in a spirit of mutual assistance, that this task is effectively fulfilled.”
Quoted from the Appeal by the Director-General for the promotion of arts education and creativity at school as part of the construction of a culture of peace. Lea International (Links to Education and Arts International.)
Arts based education is not specifically mentioned within the UN’s “Education for all by the year 2015” intuitive, however there are organizations such as “Links to Education and Art” (Lea International) who are currently pushing the agenda of arts education within the “Education for All” initiative, aware that “children define themselves as they reflect on their creative or destructive acts”(Rowe 2005 p.202). Other researchers have argued that arts education is valuable “in communities suffering war and other prolonged social traumas, [where the]…need for various channels of communication is intensified”(Rowe 2005 p.197). It provides a safe place to explore ones emotions and “provides not simply a means of expressing extreme emotions or difficult circumstances, but also a way of discovering and understanding them”(Rowe 2005 p.198). I argue that in order for a young women to be able to fully benefit from a basic education she must deal with any issues of post traumatic stress and also be able to have space created for her to grow and learn about herself and her community’s struggles.
In Nigeria The National Policy on Education (NPE) “has provisions for teaching art at all levels of education” and it recognizes “art education as one of the powerful instruments for self-reliant economy”(Mamza 2007 p.1), however, Mamza observes that there is still a continued lack of art education in Nigeria. Mamza argues that the three main contributors and problems facing art education development are: “shortage of qualified art teachers, inadequate teaching facilities and funding, [and a] poor government and societal attitudes towards the subject”(Mamza 2007 p.2).
Written by: Brandy Svendson
